Tag Archives: halloween

After I finished my last short story and put it aside, I buckled down adn wrapped up my work on that side project I was writing on contract. since then, I’ve been wrestling with what to tackle next. I wanted to continue the momentum with another short project, and maybe tie a neat ribbon around something I’d written before that was executed badly. There are plenty of those stories in my drive.

I eventually settled on an idea that had a tremendous amount of atmospheric dread but didn’t deliver with the plot or characters. Plus, one of the two characters was just kind of there, and the main character was a bit of a bore. As I started working on correcting it, I realized that it would just be easier to rewrite it entirely. I’ve managed to get through about forty percent of the story already, but it’s Halloween and tomorrow is the start of November.

That means either I need to finish writing this sucker tonight (which would entail an exhausting four thousand words, give or take) or put it aside for a month. I certainly don’t want to do the latter, and the former is impractical (especially as I’m wasting about 500 of those potential words on this post.) Which means, I’ll be juggling both throughout the weekend, meeting my 2,000 words a day quota for the book and then getting in at least half as much again on the story.

Oof.

With two kids, Halloween weekend, a friend visiting, and some plans throughout the weekend, it’s going to be tough to keep either of those promises let alone both, but what can you do? 2,000 words a day, every day.

I think I know what I want to write, and the ideas I’ve got rolling about are doable. Also, I’m determined, this time, to write something each time, even if it winds up non-linear. I’m also going to do my absolute best to avoid any revision whatsoever. That always eats up hours of my November, when I go back to re-read something, change a word here, rewrite a phrase there, and suddenly I’ve wasted hours fiddling instead of vomiting words.

That’s basically what NaNo is for me – a month of word-bulimia. I just need to force myself till the words come out. Word counts have never been my problem, brevity isn’t something I generally think about until I’m revising, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve also grown more critical of my writing. At least in fiction, if not in my blogs. When I find myself indulging my own pleasure, I always have to pause and give myself a head-check. Is this essential?

With NaNo, there’s no room for any of that, no time to correct a spelling (even if it just takes a second), no time to apply context, no time for anything close to elegance – there are just brute keystrokes making words.

This year, I’m probably going to avoid even using a word processor. I’ll be with just a flat text editor and a file in DropBox in order to avoid even the smallest distraction of squiggly lines.

I will report back when I can get my head out of the word toilet. Good luck, everybody!